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Forum:Romaji Policy
I think it is important for the wiki to reconsider its policy on the use of romaji titles on the wiki. There are two very important reasons I believe that this policy should be done away with. #For the casual reader, using romaji does not give them any actual information. I understand that for series veterans, we know what it means when we see Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi and the like. However using that title does not help readers who are trying to learn about the series. For those readers the romaji does not mean anything, because it's literally 暗黒竜と光の剣 in roman characters. As a wiki we should strive to be a source of high quality information and by making our content more accessible we will do just that. #Many websites including Wikipedia and Serenes Forest have done away with romanized titles, embracing more user friendly translations. By insisting on using romaji we make the Fire Emblem Wiki out of step with our peers and give a rather dated impression. Changing the articles over to translated titles wouldn't be a huge task, and the benefits to the greater Fire Emblem community would be well worth the effort. James Pierce (talk) 07:19, March 14, 2016 (UTC) :OK, first off, considering that two of the titles with romaji names are the first FE game and the remake of Mystery, which are referenced on the page of pretty much every Akaneia related character, place, and term, yeah, it's kinda a huge task. Multiple that by two (and this is being generous and assuming that FE7 has as much coverage as basically the extended Akaneia-verse) and I think you can see why folks have been hesitant to address this. :Of course, the other big reason we use the Romaji names? No one knows what to actually call these games. Like, take FE1. I've seen is translated out as Dark Dragon and the Blade of Light, Dark Dragon's' and the Blade of Light, Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, Shadow Dragons and etc, etc and the Sword of Light, and so on. It doesn't help that, if Awakening's SpotPass and the Iwata Ask interviews are any indication, Nintendo considers FE1 and FE11, as well as FE3 and FE12, to be completely interchangeable. (as in, they refer to both 1 and 11 as just "Shadow Dragon" and both 3 and 12 as just "Mystery of the Emblem"). :FE7 is another story, as I think we can agree that calling it just "Fire Emblem" is almost as confusing as leaving the romaji, but there is also the trouble of there being no accepted translation of the title (though the in game text leans towards Blazing Blade if I recall; on the other hand, officially FE6 is Binding Blade while the titular weapon is Sword of Seals, so, uhh...). :TL;DR version: The situation with the romaji titles is complicated, mainly due to changing it being a massive task few would be willing to contribute towards (though Khang still has his bot I think?) and there being no official or accepted fan English translation of the titles in question. I think the best way to deal with the later is to basically ask the userbase as to what we can all agree on for the English titles. :EDIT: For the record, to start things off, I prefer "Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light" for FE1 (keeping with the terminology from FE11), "Blazing Blade" for FE7, and "New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~" for FE12 (that will never be a uncumbersome title, geez).--Otherarrow (talk) 18:00, March 14, 2016 (UTC)